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Content Standards:
Define WHAT students should know, be able to do, understand, and care
about. Content
standards define the knowledge students should possess. They provide details
for the more general, abstract goals of education by specifying what thinking
and performance capabilities students should master. They are also sometimes
called curriculum frameworks, learning standards, learning expectations,
outcomes, and a host of other names. Standards outline the content and skills
students should cover, either at grade level or by graduation. They do not
dictate how students should be taught.
The table below illustrates the difference between well-defined and
inadequate examples of content standards:
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Well-defined
examples
of content standards
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Inadequate
examples
of content standards
(goals, vague statements, curriculum and other statements that are not good
standards)
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Apply mathematical skills and processes to other
disciplines and to everyday situations.
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Use and value the connections between mathematics and
other disciplines.
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Students will read and respond to a wide variety of
significant works of childrenÕs literature. They distinguish between the
structural features of text and the literary terms or elements (i.e.,
theme, plot, setting, and characters.)
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Students will read for pleasure.
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Students will understand domestic policies after World
War II, including the struggle for racial and gender equality and for the
extension of civil liberties.
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Demonstrate a global consciousness concerning the
issues of civil rights and human dignity.
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Students will be aware of the diversity of living
organisms and how they can be compared scientifically.
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Students will use a microscope and pond water to
locate and sketch microscopic organisms.
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Learning Benchmarks:
Points of reference
used to gauge the progress of students toward meeting content standards,
usually provided in terms of a grade level. Learning benchmarks give an idea of what students are
expected to learn by a certain point in their schooling, without being so
specific that they ignore variations in individual student progress or in the
scope and sequence of curricular offerings.
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What are Standards?
Standards are statements
about learning expectations for students. There are two major kinds of standards:
- Content Standards Ð what students are expected to know, be able
to do, understand and care about.
- Performance Standards Ð specify "how good is good enough";
relate to the issues of assessment that gauge the degree to which
content standards have been attained.
An additional type of
standard is the Lifelong-Learning Standard, which is a summary description of what students
should know/be able to do across a variety of disciplines (e.g.,
decision-making techniques, time management, study skills). In addition to discipline-specific
knowledge and skills, some skills are not strictly content related, but are
found in all aspects of the curriculum.
Why Standards?
- Standards set clear, high
expectations for student achievement.
- Standards provide a basis for
teacher and student accountability.
- Standards promote educational
equity because they are intended for all students.
- Standards help guide efforts to
measure student achievement, improve teacher training, develop more effective
curricula and instructional strategies, and allocate resources more
efficiently.
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Performance
Standards:
Specify Òhow good is good enough.Ó Performance Standards relate to
issues of assessment that gauge the degree to which content standards have
been attained. A performance
standard describes the level of student performance in respect to the
knowledge or skill described in a single benchmark or a set of closely
related benchmarks. Performance
standards sometimes identify more than one level of achievement for a
benchmark and label each level accordingly (for example, basic, proficient,
advanced).
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Subject: English/Language
Arts
Grade: 2
Content
Standard: Students read to comprehend, interpret, and evaluate informational
texts for specific purposes.
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EXCEEDS
STANDARD
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Strategically use
parts of books to locate information across texts.
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Identify and explain
cause and effect relationships and the main idea of a passage.
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Formulate and modify
complex questions to gain understanding of important information in a text.
á Consistently demonstrate an understanding of
simple directions to perform a task.
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MEETS
STANDARD
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Use the parts of a
book to locate information, including table of contents, chapter headings,
diagrams, charts, and graphs.
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Identify cause and
effect relationships and the main idea of a passage.
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Formulate questions
to gain understanding of important information in a text.
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Read and follow simple directions to perform a
task.
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APPROACHES
STANDARD
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Use some parts of a
book to locate information.
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Identify obvious
cause and effect relationships and the main idea of a passage.
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Lack necessary
detail in formulating questions to gain understanding of important
information in a text.
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Read and
inconsistently follows simple directions to perform a task.
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BELOW
STANDARD
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Use parts of a book
inconsistently, or not at all, to locate information.
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Attempt to identify
cause and effect relationships and the main idea of a passage with little
or no accuracy.
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Ask inappropriate or
undeveloped questions to gain understanding of important information in a
text.
á Cannot understand simple directions to perform a
task.
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Important Points to
Remember About Standards
- Shared expectations for learning, through
standards, can make studentsÕ education more coherent by coordinating
teaching, learning, and testing.
- Content standards should be clear and
usable. They should
guideÑnot constrictÑteaching and learning.
- Content standards do not determine the
curriculum, nor do they represent a fixed unit of class time. How and when a class operates
are not as important as whether students are reaching the
standards. What is
important is that all children reach high levels of learning.
- Not all students will reach benchmarks at the
same time. Some students
may need more assistance.
- Standards
provide many ways for students to show their abilities. Beyond written exams, students
will build portfolios and undertake projects to show their progress
toward meeting standards.
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